“Lost” / Nixon

I’d like to start with a simple question. Did the island really move?

Time and space are not the same, you know.

Is that how you see it?

Exactly, exactly. If the island, for example, is drifting east at a nearly undetectable rate, say a few centimetres a year, and you are able to bend time so that the arrangement of the land and the water more accurately reflects the situation from ten millions years ago, then the island will seem to have been relocated in space, when in fact we are dealing with time.

This leads to a broader question: People have left the island and are now trying to get back on. The island moves in space or maybe in time. Who decides any of this?

One should not get the impression that a show can run amok with regard to these questions and get away with it. We have to have in mind that a plot development ultimately must come before an audience. We also have to have in mind that a show has to get approval from the network. There are trusted executives who, on a limited basis, have approved these developments.

But what was your role?

Mine?

Let’s go to something that you have stated in previous interviews: “It’s quite obvious that there are certain creative activities which, if undertaken by writers and producers in the interests of this show, are permissible, but which, if undertaken by others, are not.” What did you have in mind there?

Well, what I had in mind, I think, was perhaps much better stated by Fred Silverman during the development of “Supertrain.” The producers wanted a mystery show, and Silverman, who was the president of NBC, and who believed very strongly in his own wisdom, wanted a show that more closely resembled the ABC hit “Love Boat.” Silverman said, and I think I can remember the quote almost exactly, “Ideas that would seem preposterous in the minds of another man could become wonderful and even profitable if undertaken for the purpose of perpetuating your own entertainment property.”

There’s a central issue we still haven’t really addressed. You said earlier that certain aspects of this show would, if applied to another show, seem moronic.

I don’t think I said moronic.

Idiotic?

I don’t think I said that, either.

Risible? Preposterous? The kind of thing that a nine-year-old would roll his eyes at?

I believe I framed it in terms of what was permissible.

But why would you remain so far outside the bounds of creative plausibility? Was that part of the plan?

There’s nothing specific in that regard that’s been articulated. I haven’t read every memo, every jot and every tittle, but I do know that it has been argued that, in the world of television, in a time of declining ratings, a show does have certain latitude which would allow choices that would otherwise be unacceptable: polar bears, healing powers, numerological coincidences.

Again, you are discussing these things as if they happened without any agency. My reading of the record tells me that you were in fact supporting these developments all along, at least in the sense that you encouraged several short-term fixes for gaping plot holes. I would say that you endorsed or ratified these kinds of things …

I didn’t endorse or ratify it.

Why didn’t you stop it?

Because at that point I had no knowledge of the fact that those kinds of things were going to consume the show. You have to remember, we were mistreated.

How so?

I’ll give you one example. When we experienced a ratings drop in the middle of the second season, it was partly a result of the failure to include viewers who recorded the show to watch later. Suddenly, in the public eye, we were on the downslide when in fact that wasn’t the case. That may have led to some unfortunate creative desperation.

Again, there’s the matter of taking responsibility.

Now, I can be faulted; I recognize it. Maybe I let it all go on too long. But I was concerned about this entire entity, about the writers, the crew members, about the advertisers who purchased commercial time, even the characters on the island. I felt they ought to have a chance at least to prove that they were not violating the trust of an audience.

You have tried to explain how you got caught up in this thing, you’ve explained your motives: I don’t want to quibble about any of that. But just coming to the substance: would you go further than “mistakes,” which is a word that seems not enough for people?

What word would you suggest?

I think the viewers, the people at home in front of their sets, would like to hear you say that there were more than mistakes, that there was wrongdoing and certainly abuse of power. Watching this show week after week has been, for some, a needless agony, and I think that should be acknowledged, for them and for you, so you are not haunted for the rest of your life.

I was not involved in this whole nonsense of moving the island, though I can, as I have said, imagine that perhaps it was moved in time and not in space. I did not sign off on the subplot where the Oceanic Six escaped from the island. Even so, it is true that perhaps I should have considered acting more prudently but did not. And for all those things I have a very deep regret.

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